1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to methods for high throughput screening of lubricating oil compositions.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of a combinatorial approach for materials synthesis is a relatively new area of research aimed at using rapid synthesis and screening methods to build libraries of polymeric, inorganic or solid state materials. For example, advances in reactor technology have empowered chemists and engineers to rapidly produce large libraries of discrete organic molecules in the pursuit of new drug discovery, which have led to the development of a growing branch of research called combinatorial chemistry. Combinatorial chemistry generally refers to methods and materials for creating collections of diverse materials or compounds—commonly known as libraries—and to techniques and instruments for evaluating or screening libraries for desirable properties.
Presently, research in the lubricant industry involves forming candidate lubricating oil composition and then performing a macro-scale analysis of the formed composition. If the results of the test(s) are not satisfactory, the entire testing procedure will be repeated for a succession of individual candidate compositions, until one of the tested candidates will meet the required criterion. Typically, the methods employed for testing each candidate composition require manual operation. This, in turn, significantly reduces the number of compositions that can be tested and identified as leading lubricating oil compositions.
Ensuring proper function of lubricating oil compositions is critical to the successful operation and maintenance of mechanical systems, such as an automobile engine. Based on the current testing technique, as disclosed above, analysis of each oil composition candidate is time consuming and costly. Thus, it would be desirable to decrease the cost associated with the known testing procedures and to increase the efficiency thereof.
Additionally, changes in specifications and changing customer needs including new statutory requirements also drive reformulation efforts in other lubricant applications such as, for example, transmission fluids, hydraulic fluids, gear oils, marine cylinder oils, compressor oils, refrigeration lubricants and the like.
However, as stated above, present research in the lubricant industry does not allow for reformulation to occur in an expeditious manner. As such, there exists a need in the art for a more efficient, economical and systematic approach for the preparation of lubricating oil compositions and screening of such compositions for information correlating to the actual useful properties of the compositions.
Yet the availability of the complete data and efficient searching tool is critical to respond to, react to and even predict constantly changing new operating conditions and governmental and industrial standards or specifications. Thus, it would be invaluable if the data regarding a variety of diagnostic tests such as wear tests were complete and efficiently searched to design and select optimal lubricating oil compositions for applications such as diesel or internal combustion engines.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to rapidly test, classify and screen a plurality of sample candidate lubricating oil compositions utilizing small amounts to automatically determine and catalog anti-wear lubricating properties. In this manner, a high throughput screening of a vast number of diverse compositions can be achieved to select and identify leading lubricating oil compositions meeting specific anti-wear needs.